Canada has said New Delhi was possibly involved in June assassination of Sikh separatist leader near Vancouver
\nTORONTO
\nHundreds of Sikh protesters rallied outside Indian diplomatic missions in Canada on Monday, trampling pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and burning flags a week after Ottawa said New Delhi had played a role in the killing of a prominent Sikh activist.
\n\u201cWe are not safe back home in Punjab, we are not safe in Canada,\u201d said Joe Hotha, a member of the Sikh community in Toronto, referring to the murder in June of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar near Vancouver.
\nLast Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told parliament that New Delhi was possibly involved in the assassination of the Sikh leader, triggering a major diplomatic crisis between the two nations.
\n\u201cNow our prime minister tells everything in the parliament, so there is no excuse,\u201d said another Sikh protester, Harpar Gosal of Toronto.
\nLike other protesters, he carried the yellow flag of Khalistan \u2014 an independent state that some Sikhs hope to create in the Indian region of Punjab.
\nSeveral hundred people gathered in Toronto but also in Ottawa and Vancouver to denounce Modi\u2019s government.
\nCanada is home to the largest Sikh community in the world outside of India, with 770,000 Canadians professing Sikhism in 2021, or two percent of the country\u2019s population.
\nThe Indian government called the Canadian accusations \u201cabsurd\u201d and vehemently denied them.
\nIt also advised its nationals not to travel to certain Canadian regions \u201cgiven the increase in anti-Indian activities\u201d and temporarily stopped processing visa applications in Canada.
\nSince then, diplomatic relations between the two countries have been at their lowest point, marked by reciprocal expulsions of diplomats while Trudeau has repeatedly called on the Indian authorities to cooperate in the investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Canada has said New Delhi was possibly involved in June assassination of Sikh separatist leader near Vancouver TORONTO Hundreds of Sikh protesters rallied outside Indian diplomatic missions in Canada on Monday, trampling pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and burning flags a week after Ottawa said New Delhi had played a role in the killing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358554,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-358540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n